Silly Sunday

So, we didn’t have a Special Sunday. It was more of a managed-to-survive, sicky, Silly Sunday. I think there may be some humour in the inane mundanaity (spelling?) of it – but there again there may not, so only read on if you really have nothing better to do…

Babe woke at six. Waking at six on a Sunday would be shitty if you hadn’t been doing it every bloody day of the week for the last two years, and given that we have, it was super-shitty.
‘Mummy, milk!’ he yelled from his room and I groaned, and the brain-ache I have spent so many consecutive days coping with, kicked in. I walked along the corridor, opened the door and waved vigorously. Which meant I could keep my mouth sleep-shut for a bit longer.

I put him down next to me in bed and gave him his beaker of milk. He took it and started drinking. This was a defining moment and I guess I now know for sure that he is no longer a baby – we have finally cut the bottles! Yesterday I bought him a purple sporty-drink bottle thing with a soft straw top that I thought might aid the transition from the bottle he has first and last thing, to cup of milk. I offered it to him last night and he hated it and tried to pull the top off, so I thought I’d try him with a beaker again instead, and he didn’t bat an eyelid – was just relieved to start downing the contents. Gosh, I had no idea it would be that easy. It helped, of course, that he was distracted by Charlie and Lola – he tends to have his milk in front of the TV these days.

So, there he sat in my bed, drinking his milk and scratching at the eczema patches on his legs while I tried to hold down the bottoms of pajama legs to stop him, and show him a picture of a bus which saved turning the telly on. I felt unable to tolerate even the tellytubbies. Babe is obsessed with vehicles, by the way. When he sees one, he repeats the word incessantly, and it becomes really bothersome. ‘Bus! Bus, bus, bus, bus………’ you get the drift. I wish I could find a route to nursery that didn’t involve walking past 500 or so parked cars, I can tell you.

Anyway, the door opened and who should walk in but… Other Half. A rare treat. He has been back in the spare room for a couple of nights as he hasn’t been feeling well, but having got away with spending most of yesterday in bed, ‘sick’, I think he’d had an attack of the guilts and wanted to do his bit. He picked Babe up and took him downstairs.

I rolled over and turned the light off. And then pulled the book and beaker out from underneath me. I should have felt delighted and able to stretch luxuriously under the covers and drop back off to sleep, but my brain kicked into overdrive. Within seconds I was stressing about work, money, impending Holiday of Doom XVII (much more to come on the that), the state of the economy, and whether the TV downstairs would be damaging Babe’s hearing and whether Other Half had thought to change his nappy.

After fifty minutes of tossing and turning, I went downstairs. 7.20.
‘You might as well go and lie down upstairs,’ I said to Other Half, who was lying on the sofa. ‘I can’t sleep.’
He went upstairs and fell asleep until 10.30.

I got Babe dressed, made us breakfast, hovered and cleaned the sitting room, emptied the dishwasher, put two lots of washing through, checked the tomato plants for slugs and watered them, tidied the toy box, and drew a large picture of cars, spiders and butterflies. All at an agonizingly dithery slow pace. It was a muggy day and I felt as though my head was blocked up. I needed to wash and dress myself – but I wanted to wash my hair – and try and get my brain into gear, but I just couldn’t shake the dreadful pain of wanting to be back in bed. Note to self: do not wake with greasy hair at the weekend! (Readers: I told you this would be boring…)

So, at half ten, we went upstairs to wake Other Half, who said he was still feeling ill, but gave me a shoulder massage and got dressed. By this time it was raining, but Babe was champing at the bit to be out of the house, so I suggested Other Half took him to soft play. In fact, I fancied going – I love the ball pit and the covered slide - but I needed to shower and get lunch. Like most parents, I do stress about getting enough of the right kind of food into my son. He has a penchant for the sweet things in life, and embarrasses me by waking from a nap in the buggy in the following way: stir, rub eyes, look around, and yell ‘cake! Biscuit! MUMMY!’ He is his mother’s son, for sure.

‘Wear him out for a while in the ball pit,’ I suggest, ‘and then bring him back at about 12. We can lunch together and then I’ll put him down for a sleep. He’ll sleep better and for longer if he’s not hungry, and then we’ll have got one good meal into him today. IF we don’t, he won’t eat properly after he’s slept, and will want to snack all afternoon…’

‘Ok,’ says Other Half. And I think we both know that the chances of getting Babe home, tired and awake, are slim. But because I’ve got brain ache and the air is muggy I put salmon in the oven, wash my hair, lay the table, and have a lovely meal ready for the ridiculously early time of 12 midday. Other Half turns up at half past, after several nagging phone calls – ‘we’re busy in the pet shop’ – and Babe is asleep.

So I get him into his cot, and we sit down, bickering and not really hungry, to eat Sunday lunch. See what I mean about ‘silly’? Just, I don’t know, ridiculous, daft, dumbass.

I can’t face more chores, and so I decide to go with my brain ache, and tell Other Half that I’m going back to bed. He isn’t tired – of course he isn’t bloody tired after a three-hour lie-in - but decides to come with me, so I make it really clear that my sole purpose of returning to the sack is to sleep. He looks at me and comes anyway.

We chat for a while, and he gives me another back rub, and then just as I am dropping off, Babe wakes. Other Half takes him downstairs and I hear him trying to administer cold salmon and broccoli. After half an hour I give up trying to sleep and go back downstairs.By three o’clock we have fussed and farted, changed babe a couple of times, packed and repacked a day bag and decided to go out. We walk by the river – for all of ten minutes as we forgot the buggy and babe refused to walk and is too heavy to carry far - take a little ferry to a teahouse where we buy huge slabs of not-half-as-nice-as it-looks cake that makes us all feel sick, and then drive back home, via the park, where I rest on the see-saw, wondering who Marjorie Daw was.

By the time we get home (half five-ish) Other Half is needing to rest again, so he sleeps on the sofa while I play trains, give Babe tea, and read books with him. We then play with a sticker book of fish, that provides us both with great fun. I love that babe seems to get what the pictures are of, but sticks them in really random places: stranded dolphin on the sand, treasure chest on the harbour wall, deep sea diver lying on the rocks etc etc, and then he decides he wants to stick the stickers on his pajama top instead of the pages – I can’t see why not and let him have a couple, and then he wants to stick a couple on me. For some reason he sticks them on my boobs.

After milk (yes, in beaker ;)), a bit more TV, another few books and cuddles and I get him into bed.

Then I do more chores, get things ready for a long day of meetings in London tomorrow, sniff the few presentable items of clothing I possess to make sure they didn’t need washing before I put them on tomorrow, and sit down to have a snack. The phone rings, I keep the call short, and then flop. I would like to spend some time on my Domestic Budget and my Life Plan but I haven’t got the energy. There is nothing on TV and these days I don’t read much. I look at the Michelin website, in a bid to persuade Other Half that we don’t have the time or money to drive to his home town when we have our holiday this September, but he gets excited and starts analysing the map.

So I push him away and start writing this blog as I just don’t know what else to do with myself. At least now it’s 11pm and hopefully I’ll fall asleep when I go to bed.

Goodnight!